Lucky Man review: God is here and Puneeth Rajkumar’s fans will absolutely love it

4/5

Story: Arjun Nagapappa (Darling Krishna), Anu (Sangeetha Sringeri) and Shetty (Nagabhushana), are childhood friends. Faced with the prospect of an arranged marriage, Anu asks Arjun if he’d marry her instead and he does. Soon enough he realises that you can make your wife your best friend but you can’t make your best friend your wife. His heart, he believes, lies with Meera (Roshni Prakash), so he decides to get divorced.

At the family court, though, Arjun runs into someone who gives him the option to reset his life the way he’d want it to be. Will Arjun find his happily-ever-after with Meera or is Anu the queen of his heart?

Review: Lucky Man is the late Power Star Puneeth Rajkumar’s last commercial film release. Fans will get one more chance to see him onscreen this year when Gandhada Gudi comes out, but that’s a docu-feature. So, in that sense, Lucky Man is Puneeth’s swan song and one that his fans will absolutely fall in love with.

I caught the film last evening at a paid preview that had an almost full house. It became clear to me fairly soon enough that pretty much everyone there had come to catch a glimpse of the late Puneeth. The whistles and hoots every time he was onscreen was testimony to the love and respect the late Power Star commands.

In the run-up to the release of the film, the buzz was that the team of Lucky Man was skimping on promotional activities because they were counting on Puneeth fans to fill up cinemas. It’s a calculated move, but one that most definitely will not misfire. Puneeth is a treat to watch in his scenes; he seems to have had fun playing god. You will notice the change in audio quality in his scenes because the team was forced to use the recordings they captured during the shoot, as he had not dubbed for his role. The beauty of modern-day technology, though, is that the audio quality isn’t bad, so you get to watch Puneeth talk in his own voice, making the role a complete package. As pleasing as it is to see Puneeth in this role, it is also bound to leave you teary-eyed. This is it! The Paramathma who doled out a second chance to Darling Krishna in the film, tragically, did not get one himself.

Lucky Man is going to be talked about for Puneeth, but let’s not take away credit from the rest of the cast, who made the film a breezy watch. Darling Krishna, for instance, is superb and comes across as extremely likeable as the goofball-turned-hopeless romantic Arjun. His scenes with Puneeth and Sadhu Kokila are fun; no wonder that the leading ladies of the film rued that they missed out on that opportunity. Talking of the ladies, both Sangeetha Sringeri and Roshni Prakash do complete justice to their roles and ensure that ‘Soda’ and ‘Meerakka’ will be remembered. What was also refreshing was that Sadhu Kokila was not reduced to doing mindless comedy in the film. The actor is the perfect foil for Puneeth.

Verdict: Lucky Man is a wholesome entertainer, but suffice to say that audiences will throng movie halls for Puneeth. His smile, voice and, of course, the Baaro Raaja number with Prabhudeva are enough to make this film a hit at the box office. Don’t forget to watch the end credits. Puneeth Rajkumar lives on in everyone’s hearts.